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Show Bv RON SCOTT, Chronicle Associate Editor and VANDRA HUBER, Chronicle Staff Writer We made our way carefully down the skid row section of Salt Lake to the Beehive Elks Lodge, where Negro teenagers meet on Friday and Saturday for dancing. We entered the dilapidated building to the jiving of a local rock and roll band. Negro teenagers were jerking in spastic rhythm to the steady throb of amplified guitars and drums, set in a corner of the half darkened room. As we talked to Negro youths, we were told that this was the only place Negro youngsters had for entertainment on Friday and Saturday Sat-urday nights. This event wrapped up one full month of surveys, interviews, and experiences of the Negro in Utah. We began our investigation with a group of youngsters at Salt Lake City's West High School. We met first with Dr. Knight B. Kerr, principal of the high school. We explained that we wanted to talk to some of his Negro students, emphasizing that we wanted the students from all social and intellectual backgrounds. He obliged, saying that he thought the report would be beneficial for the Salt Lake community com-munity and those on the outside who oftentimes offer flagrant criticism of the Civil Rights situation in Utah. Dating White Girl The first young Negro we talked to was from a hard working Negro family, that has sent two of their children so far to college. The young man at the present pres-ent time was dating a white girl. He had felt some resentment and resistance from the girl's parents although al-though they had treated him fairly. He felt perhaps that their church background had helped breed this resentment. Like most of the students we interviewed, he replied re-plied to the question: "Do you feel the Mormon doctrine doc-trine of no priesthood for the Negro carries over into their everyday dealings with the Negro race; he answered an-swered that most of his friends were Mormon and in his association with them he had felt no discrimination discrimina-tion because of his race. Three of the Negro girls we interviewed at West High replied that they had no knowledge whatsoever of the doctrine of denial to the Negro of the Mormon priesthood. We were especially anxious to obtain the teenagers' teen-agers' views on Black Power and Black Supremacy. We asked the questions first of some West High stu- dents. "First off," one of the coeds said, "you must realize that there is a difference between Black Power and Black Supremacy. Black Power means," she said, "that the Negro is seeking equal power with the white. In other words, power to obtain a good education, power to eat at any restaurant, power to get a good job that meets the Negro's aptitude and skills, and power to be in an elected governmental body. Black Supremacy, on the other hand, holds that blacks are the supreme race and that they will eventually overtake over-take the United States." Every one of the Negroes we talked to was in strong opposition to the Black Supremacy movement. A girl from West summed up the opinion of her group by saying, "We want to be equal but not superior that would make us bigots in much the same way as a few whites are now." One sophomore from West commented that with blacks becoming strong plong with the whites, that America in turn could become stronger. Intermarriage Increasing We were appraised by all of the Negroes that a move towards intermarriage among the races was on the increase. "Why should two people who are in love with each other refuse to marry because of a skin difference. English have married Scandinavians, Chinese the Japanese, why the big outrage when a Negro marries a white?" Some of the Negroes felt that intermarriage shouldn't be precahed, but when it happened hap-pened that people should react just like they would to any other marriage. One pretty young girl commented, com-mented, "A lot of white girls were really falling hard for the Negro males of course this works both ways," she said. All of them said that the biggest resistence to the Negro came when attempts were made to date or marry white people. The mother of an exceptionally well-educated Negro family in the Salt Lake area had many of the same comments as did the younger generation of her race. She said she believed that intermarriage should take place because the main purpose of man's existence exist-ence was to marry and raise a fine family "Who knows whether a white will fall in love with a black and if he does what right does anyone have to deny this love of a man for a woman?" This lady has experienced ex-perienced intermarriage in their family; their oldest son married a Mexican girl. "I think," she said, "that aside from the normal marriage adjustments my son's family is very well balanced." Schools Are Good "Schools in Utah are exceptional, commented one West High mother. She feels that Dr. Kerr, West High's principal, is fair and makes the Negro youths feel wanted and accepted. "He hasn't hesitated to assign as-sign Negro mothers to PTA committees and he encourages en-courages action for fair treatment .of the ;Negro in all aspects of life. He's not a radical by any means, but goes about his job with a firmness and sensibleness that- makes him outstanding in his position as principal." princi-pal." Unfortunately the race situation is not as rosy at all Utah high schools as it is at West High. When Ogden High School in Ogden, Utah, was contacted, the principal there became disturbed and concerned that The Dailv Utah Chronicle mipht hp "We don't like to be associated with filth, but under the present circumstances we have no other choice," a Negro mother told us. Ghettos Not Good "House hunting in Salt Lake has been extremely difficult," commented com-mented a middle-aged Negro woman. wom-an. "Because I don't have a typical Negro sounding accent, the white realtor brought house listing to me that were all in the Esat side of Salt Lake the predominantly white middle class area. When he arrived at my door he was shocked to find out that I was colored. He said that he had brought the wrong list of housing and went back and tried to sell me a house in the more or less ghettos of Salt Lake. I don't want to live in ghettos they're really isn't any need for it. Most of the houses that I saw were run down and were in need of repair, and in some cases should have been condemned many years ago. Between Tracks "We decided on a house between two sets of railroad tracks because we wanted to gain some kind of autonomy in the community. Even our present house was in awful shape when we moved in, but my husband, who works long hours for the Union Pacific Railroad, took time out to repair the house and add a gas heating system. The house had formerly been serviced by a coal stove." On inspection of the house we found it to be as tidy as the best kept houses in the city. Discrimination in Salt Lake has decreased in the past five years. It used to be that a Negro had trouble going out to eat. Head waiters often ignored Negro customers; cus-tomers; others told Negroes outright out-right that they wouldn't be served. An Ogden Negro, who went into a local restaurant with three other white friends, was refused service while his three companions were waited on. All four of them left in disgust. Ben Lomond High School youngsters told us that they had trouble being served after a high school prom at a semi-exclusive Ogden restaurant. "We have heard since then that Negroes have been served there but several of our friends were also denied service." serv-ice." Slow Check Out Line On a church trip with the youth group of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, two west side Salt Lake Negroes were refused service at a branch of a large western grocery gro-cery store chain. White members of the church group became concerned con-cerned after they waited for the Negro youths to emerge from the store. Upon investigating the delay they found the Negro youths still waiting in checkout lines because lines began to slow down as it came time for clerks to wait on the youths. A formal letter was written to the chain complaining of the incident. The officials of the store answered with an embarrassed apology. In Civil Rights, Utah has been compared by outsiders to the deep South. It has been less than five years since the law forbidding intermarriage in-termarriage of whites and Negroes was repealed. With the repeal of the intermarriage law came the birth of a new civil rights movement move-ment in the Beehive State. Marion Anderson, Negro singer, added fire to the Negroes' movement before the repeal of the marriage law, when she was forced to ride the servants' elevator at the Hotel Utah, the most exclusive hotel in Salt Lake City. Miss Anderson was at that time one of the few Negroes who had been able to secure housing hous-ing at the elite hotel. Many Negro performers who frequent Salt Lake have been housed at the Hotel Newhouse or more recently at the Ramada Inn. Satisfied Citizenry According to outsiders, controversy contro-versy in Salt Lake could run rampant, but most of the people here are satisfied with the city and don't become too vocal against political or church establishments. The average Salt Laker is in bed in the early hours of the night. The streets in this city of almost half a million "fold up" at night, except for the bars which cater largely to the college age set. The Negro finds the city to be "a nice place to raise a family but hurting for night life." Of all the Negroes we talked to only a handful thought the South was a better place to live than Utah. When compared to Los Angeles Ange-les and San Francisco the vote was split about fifty-fifty. Mormons during the past decade have become more conscious of the denial of priesthood to the -Negro and have been consciously trying to make up for the "so-called deficiency" de-ficiency" in other areas of civil rights laws and open housing laws (Continued on Page 8) ) v I " ' - . " -f ' J f " S ' H '.'V AV;-J f f - v ' ; J? I i I i ' ' ' -" V" ? jf III -'C t - i "?J v ' t " - c ' ! ' . ' ". -"" " " "3 , ' I If f . - I up trouble, that in Principal Snow's words, "didn't exist." But after receiving re-ceiving a vote of confidence from Ben Lomond's principal Dr. Lionel Drechsel, another Ogden City high school principal, Mr. Snow consented con-sented to let us interview his students. stu-dents. Unfortunately, we were unable un-able to return to Ogden High to for follow-up interviews with the Negro students. According, however, how-ever, to Negroes at Ben Lomond, Negroes feel some discrimination at Ogden High School. Said one Ben Lomond athlete, "I left Ogden High because I wasn't treated fairly by some of my teachers." The Ogden Negro feels that Ben Lomond shows little or no prejudice towards him consequently many of the Negroes at other Ogden high schools are attempting at-tempting to transfer to Ben Lomond." Lom-ond." This migration of Negro high school students to Ben Lomond presents a serious crisis for the school. No Night Entertainment Salt Lake and Ogden face a real crisis if they don't provide a place for Negroes to go for night entertainment. enter-tainment. The only Negro disco-teque disco-teque we could locate is in a semi-run down Elks Lodge on West South Temple. Youths in the Ogden area have nowhere to go at night, unless they have the money and cars to make the 35-mile jaunt from Ogden to Salt Lake, we were told. The teenagers, commenting on the situation, said the Mayor and City Commissioners tend to overlook the problem because there are so many Friday and Saturday night dances sponsored by the L.D.S. Church. "We could go to those dances, but I'm sure we'd feel terribly out of place. We really would like to have some place that we could go at night that was respectable and in a decent section of town." The present Negro teenage night club is located on the outskirts of the "Skid Row" area of Salt Lake many whites are afraid to be in the area after dark because of the numerous muggings, rapes and propositions by floozies who patrol Salt Lake's West side on weekends. Vx rt - ,-yv ; ; , -x vs. ;vy I Negro youths from Job Corps Center share soft drinks together at teenage night club on Salt Lake's west side. The Job Corps Center has brought many negroes into the Utah Community during the past few years. The boys seemed to be enjoying their stay in Utah, but found the night life dead compared to their home cities. r'-u-.-i . All;" . Vs! liSir-S'-siisia::-- - ::, S 11 (Continued from Page 7) in the city. President Hugh B. Brown, of the Church's First Presidency, Presi-dency, stated the church position on civil rights by saying: "The church denies the Negro the priesthood priest-hood for reasons that no one knows, but as far as any other discrimination members of the church cannot use the church as an excuse." Mormons in general feel the Negro should have the same opportunity as do whites. There are, however, outspoken Mormon segregationists who oppose the views of Elder Brown but Mormons are not the only group with "segregationists" in the city. Discrimination Among Negroes According to some Utah Negroes there is discrimination among their own race. Black Africans who are in the U.S. on student visas "won't have a thing to do" with the American Ameri-can Negro. In fact, some Africans refuse to be labeled as Negroes. Said one Salt Lake Negro lady, "Apartments are more readily available avail-able to African students than they would be to Negro students. Some whites even think of the African as not being a real Negro." The "slums" of Salt Lake and Ogden, where the Negro is still to an extent confined, are not nearly as bad as the ghettos of eastern cities. Most of the Utah "slums" are composed of dilapidated single or duplex style homes. City Fathers aren't overly anxious to accept federal fed-eral funds for urban renewal although al-though Utah's slums are becoming progressively worse. With very little financial backing the slums could be eradicated while still in the "breeding" stage. Race Riots? When questioned about the possibility pos-sibility of race riots in Utah, most of the Negroes snickered. "Who wants to riot," they queried. "We are the ones who would suffer. If a not did come, it wouldn't be in Salt Lake we're not organized at all here. The only logical place for a riot would be in the Ogden area where Negroes are better organized." organ-ized." In speaking of the summer riots in Detroit and Newark, one Negro youth said, "Negroes were fools not to carry the plundering into the predominantly white suburbs. Instead we were satisfied to burn our own homes and in general make what we had a lot worse." Opposing this young man's views, a Ben Lomond High School senior said, "The Negro hurt his own cause by rioting. I can't see why the riots were necessary and anyone any-one upon careful analysis would have realized that riots brew trouble for everyone." A Negro mother felt that the riots did solve some problems. "It brought out into the open the reality of ghettos, rats and underprivileged living. I feel that it hurt our image overseas, though" she added, "Negroes could have found a better way to solve the problems thai, by rioting, but alternatives have been put off by the white people for too long and obviously the Negro became desperate." The Future Utah has made much progress in the past few years there is much progress still to be made. Prejudices of schools, churches, and common citizens have to be carefully unraveled. Unlike most other U.S. cities, Salt Lake and Ogden can proceed with this careful care-ful retracing of steps without making mak-ing mistakes with too hasty urban renewal projects and "white prejudiced" preju-diced" civil rights acts. The queries that were placed before eastern communities ten years ago are being be-ing faced by the city fathers and citizens of the Utah communities today. It will be vitally interesting to see if Salt Lake and Ogden can handle their problems better than their sister cities on both coasts. If they do, they will be among the few major cities not to experience race riots. If they don't, Salt Lake and Ogden could well become the Detroit's and Newark's of fifteen years from now. The Banks have family prayer together before the evening meal. This is not an occasional practice for the family, but an everyday occurance. Like all American families, they pray for the prosperity of the country and for the servicemen in Vietnam. ; ' ; ;-; -. i . i ijiiii .1 iiBiiwuwy 11 i 11 uu 1 . uyyi,i u i'l. 1. ' Like normal American males, these two young men take time out from dancing to grab a quick smoke and a few beers. Is , " i " Vt . " I 1 -v; i , I " -i , I r f " I - u I I ,f . v l - 1 - : , ' ' --, -s f - A f- ' . , - ' a - - - :t "--:,tl---. r ? -r-s-- t- ti.v 5 Mrs. Banks removes a pie from the oven in preparation foir the evening meal. Unlike most, plans her menus a week in advance, writes it on a chalk board, so her daughters can start preparing before she comes home from work. . ., , ., ; :i ' . -;'! i The Artie Banks family of Salt Lake, hoot it up during a night together to-gether with the family. Mr. and Mrs. Banks have sent two of their children to college. |